Kitty-Kuse-Platz

Women who love women have always been less visible, and less commemorated, even though the Schöneberg neighbourhood of the 1920s had more lesbian locations than anywhere else in Berlin and was a hot spot that has never been surpassed.

It was home to one of the most famous cabaret stars, Claire Waldoff, who was synonymous with the image of the blunt but big-hearted Berliner. In 1989, a plaque was unveiled at her home at Regensburger Straße 33. At Leberstraße 65 there is a plaque marking the birthplace of Marlene Dietrich, who symbolised seductive femininity in the film The Blue Angel, but also became a butch idol.

In 1997, a square in Schöneberg was renamed in honour of Kitty Kuse, a prominent activist of the lesbian movement in the 1970s. During the Nazi era she helped the Jewish painter Gertrude Sandmann to survive. And this artist, who was also involved in the lesbian movement, has been commemorated since 2014 by a plaque where she lived at Eisenacher Straße 89.